Your PRESENT is the point at which flesh and matter meet with the spirit. Therefore "THE PRESENT IS THE POINT OF POWER" in your current time, as you think of it. The PRESENT is your point of a c t i o n, f o c u s and p o w e r, and from that point of volition you form both your F U T U R E AND P A S T. Computer,Internet, Marketing, Interesting Stuff, google, tips, power.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

has been excluded from Mkini in Blogs in the Blogsearchhttp://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=%2Bmalaysiakini+-A site that supplements its news is deemed unfit for its readers. Just Bookmark this Site (for faster access) instead of coming via Mkini in Blogs in Malaysiakini= = == = == = ==Datuk Nazri Abdul Aziz & company, Time to let Go. Let go of all your fears. What are your biggest fears – policies & decisions that do not benefitcountry & MALAYS in particular?Give us the little freedom of expression and there is the fear that it would hurt the others.Are they go fragile that they can be so easily hurt? Look at and watch things grow. They grow...and bloom... and fade...and die...and change into something else. In the process of becoming, we must also learn when to let go; for change, growth and evolution—the elements of the process of becoming a developed Nation—are impossible without this.

The Nation is also changing, growing and evolving and is in good hands.Whatever misunderstandings, wrongdoing and other imperfections committed by BN & in particular UMNO, real as they are, are seldom committed out of any intent to be evil, but because of severe misinterpretations about the nature of good, and the means that can be taken towards its actualization.Forgive and let go just as your mistakes can be forgiven.

Your problems are caused by your own doubts. These doubts arise because you have been out of touch with the validity of your own existence.Our lives are structured by our prejudices and beliefs. Many of your own beliefs work for you for a certain period of your life.And the same goes for a Nation. So examine our core and invincible beliefs the Nation is facing.They are valid for certain periods only in a Nation’s development;you cannot hold on to them forever and you will grow out of many of them.Recognize those “leftover” beliefs and discard them and we can progress to be a great Nation.

Your BIGGEST predicament is to overcome your FEARS.The purpose behind all life lessons is learning how to overcome your fears, for doing so is the only way that you can let go and move on with the evolution of our country.= == == = =

December 06, 200701:23 AM

Any Form Of Freedom Has Limit - Nazri

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- Every form of freedom, including freedom of expression, which is a fundamental human right, has its limit, said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz. He said everyone in this country had such freedom as long as it did not adversely affect the rights of other parties. "We are free to say something but if what we say hurts and offends others, which could cause conflict or chaos, then this is no longer our basic right. "Freedom has its limit, that is, when it affects other people's rights. So, there is no absolute freedom," he said in a television live interview over the "Bersama Menteri" (With the Minister) programme on RTM1 tonight. He said public order was the government's responsibility, as such the country had drawn up laws and regulations for this to prevail. "We have the Police Act 1965 and Penal Code for the government to ensure public order."He said security control was instituted and laws drawn up taking into consideration Mlaysia's situation as a country with various races and religions.

"Racial and religious prejudices still exist in this country, so we need controls to avoid any untoward incidents," he added. On claims that Malaysian laws were outdated, Nazri said the laws had to exist in view of Malaysia's unique situation.

Meanwhile, Deputy Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (ABOVE)has called on Malaysians to reject groups out to spoil the country's name and threaten its sovereignty. He said, the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), for instance, had sent a memorandum on its complaints against the Malaysian government to Britain's Queen Elizabeth instead of the Malay rulers. Zahid was speaking when attending the screening of the movie, "Hati Malaya", which tells the story of Malaysia's struggle for independence from British colonial rule, at the Islamic International University here tonight. In another development, 45 non-governmental organisations throughout the country will send a memorandum soon to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, opposing any future street demonstration by Hindraf. Speaking at a press conference called by Damai Malaysia tonight, Lembah Jaya assemblyman Datuk Ismail Kijo said the memorandum would urge the Prime Minister to take stern action against Hindraf's activities which could threaten national security and public order.

= == =December 06, 200700:12 AM

Uproar Over Ministry's Programmes For Indian Youths

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- A heated argument broke out in the Dewan Rakyat Wednesday when several Barisan Nasional and opposition Members of Parliament questioned the effectiveness of programmes organised by the Youth and Sports Ministry for Indian youths. Datuk Bung Mokhtar Raden (BN-Kinabatangan) questioned the ministry's efforts to get closer to Indian youths, claiming that many of them were involved in the illegal rally mounted by the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) recently. This was refuted by Ministry parliamentary secretary S.A. Vigneswaranthe, who said that many Indian youth associations were carrying out activities like the "Rakan Muda Masuk Estet" programme under the guidance of the ministry. Vigneswaran stressed that other races are also facing similar problems with their youths.

There was an uproar when Lim Kit Siang (ABOVE) (DAP-Ipoh Timur) said the Indian community was facing bigger problems than those of other races because they were neglected by the MIC.

= == = =December 05, 200723:40 PM

MIC To Propose Guidelines On Building, Removal Of Temples

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- The MIC is to propose to the government, guidelines to be adopted and used by all local authorities and state governments on the building and removal of Hindu temples. Party secretary general Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said Hinduism stipulates that specific requirements be fulfilled prior to the building and removal of temples. The MIC hopes that the guidelines would avoid misunderstanding and discontentment in the management of these sensitive issues in the future, he said in a statement.

He said the MIC welcomed the call by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz for clear guidelines to be issued to local authorities on the handling of issues pertaining to temples. Subramaniam said the party would come up with the guidelines in consultation with Hindu organisations.

= == = = == =December 05, 200722:46 PM

S'gor Dishes Out Various Programmes To Help Indian Community

By Hafizah Kamaruddin

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- Selangor, home to among the largest number of Indian Malaysians in the country, has implemented various programmes and activities aimed at bringing progress to the community.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Khir Toyo (ABOVE) said they included special funds to enable Indian youths from poor families to attend technical training courses.He said through the annual RM1 million allocation under a special technical education fund, the government was bringing Indian youths who had been left behind back into the social development mainstream and restoring their confidence to climb up the social ladder. He told Bernama that short-term courses offered by Inpens college not only allowed Indian youths to develop technical skills but also receive spiritual guidance on Fridays. "In addition, they each receive a monthly RM100 pocket money," he said. Jointly organised by the Royal Malaysia Police, Social Strategic Foundation and Inpens since 2006, the programme had shown positive results in terms of reducing their involvement in negative activities, said Mohamad Khir.

"Up till July this year, a total of 101 youths had successfully completed the various skills enhancing courses and another 148 are still studying there," he said. The Selangor state government had also set up an education fund for the children of estate workers to help them pursue education at higher levels, an initiative being handled by Yayasan Selangor with an allocation of RM1 million a year, he said. Mohamad Khir said that Indians made up 13.1 per cent of Selangor's 4.96 million population. For them, he said, the state government had readied a number of allocations totalling RM3 million a year including for temples.

Those in the low-income bracket were given the opportunity to own low-cost houses, he said. Mohamad Khir said efforts by the state government to address social problems among the various ethnic groups in the state could be seen from development programmes being carried out in Kampung Medan in Jalan Klang Lama and the surrounding areas. According to him, the multiracial community there was now living in peace and harmony although there were racial tensions several years ago arising from minor misunderstandings. Recalling the 2001 incident, Mohamad Khir said he could still remember how he had to sleep in a temple to ensure the safety of the Indian population there."I went to Kampung Medan every night and even slept in a temple to prevent untoward incidents. I would return to the office early in the morning. I did that for several days until the situation was under control," he said.

Mohamad Khir said people and leaders from various races in the area had helped him to calm down the situation. He stressed that only six people died as a result of clashes in Kampung Medan and not 100 as claimed by certain irresponsible groups. Mohamad Khir also rejected allegations that the incident in Kampung Medan was an attempt at ethnic cleansing.

SUNGAI SIPUT: The concerns of the global Indian community in the wake of the street protest organised by the Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) will be allayed by the facts, MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said yesterday. He said during his working visits to foreign countries, including India, he was often asked about the conditions of the Indian community in Malaysia. "There are two things I take into consideration when I answer such questions. The first is to explain the requests and proposals of the Indians that were met by the government.

"The second is to explain those demands that have been turned down or not met. I cannot bluff like them (Hindraf organisers) and say that the Indians did not get anything," he said. Samy Vellu was asked how he planned to explain the concerns raised by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, through Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to The Hindu, Karunanidhi had written to Manmohan about the rally. He reportedly urged Manmohan to employ the necessary measures regarding the "suffering and bad treatment" of Tamils in Malaysia. Samy Vellu, however, was quick to say that Karunanidhi had not meant to interfere, "He will never do such a thing. But when there are reports that 50,000 Tamils were smashed on the streets, then naturally anybody, anywhere, and not necessarily in India, will be aghast." He said a day after the street rally, he was interviewed by a New Delhi-based television station in which he told the interviewer "not to be taken in by the protest". "This is what happens when someone starts to throw wild allegations.

"Are the Indians in this country without clothes? Are they without jobs? Are they without food? I cannot bluff like them. I will tell only the truth," he said. He lashed out at Hindraf for capitalising on the allegation that the government had indiscriminately torn down temples, saying that these people had never erected temples anywhere in the country.

"They have never fought with the government to get land for the temples. Instead, they have been on a worldwide campaign that Malaysia is against Hinduism. "I, on the other hand, have acquired several plots of land from the chief ministers to build temples. I have received money from the government. Each year we get RM1 million to build temples and the money has been channelled for that purpose solely." He also said the rally organisers had produced a CD and were distributing copies of it worldwide alleging that 35,000 temples had been demolished in the country. Rubbishing the allegation, he urged the Indians to go through newspapers of the last 20 years and to read for themselves the number of temples demolished. He reiterated that any temple in a development area would be shifted and compensation paid. "There are so many temples which were built illegally. For instance, along the double-tracking project between Ipoh and Rawang, 76 such temples were shifted and compensation paid. "Anyway, I have been working on temple matters even before he (Hindraf adviser P. Uthayakumar) was born," said Samy Vellu.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Selangor MIC welcomed the prime minister's "reassuring" stand on the Indian community. MIC deputy president and Selangor MIC chairman Datuk G. Palanivel said Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's statement on Saturday showed how concerned he is with the situation. "Malaysian Indians are fully aware of his fair and just commitment to all," Palanivel said. "The MIC is aware of the people's grievances, but our approach is both realistic and rational." He denied claims by Hindraf that Indians were marginalised or subjected to "ethnic cleansing".

Hindraf note probe: Lawyer to know fate

by Shahrul Hafeez and Ahmad Fairuz Othman

KUALA KANGSAR: A decision will be made this week on whether there is a case under the Sedition Act against Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) legal adviser P. Uthayakumar (ABOVE) on the movement's contentious memorandum to the British government. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said the attorney-general should have received a report on the authenticity of the document and would take the appropriate action should there be a case against Uthayakumar. "We have already asked the police to investigate the authenticity of the memorandum and who wrote it. The A-G has this report," he said.In the memorandum, purportedly signed by Uthayakumar, Hindraf appealed to the British government to refer Malaysia to the World Court and the International Criminal Court for "crimes against ethnic minority Indians". It also spoke of so-called "ethnic cleansing" of Indians in the country and alleged that "government-backed armed Islamic extremists" had destroyed a temple in Klang. Nazri, met at a mass circumcision ceremony involving 58 boys at Sekolah Agama Rakyat An Najah in Taman Kuala Kangsar here yesterday, said the wild allegations made by Hindraf was a serious matter for the country.

Nazri urged the public not to support or take part in any rally organised by Hindraf in the near future. "What the movement has done is only to raise fears, concerns and suspicions among the grassroots. We need positive interaction between the races. We do not need this." On Hindraf's move to lobby international support for its cause, he said what anyone does overseas is his own business but the foreign countries approached should not be taken in by duplicity. In Kangar earlier, Nazri said Hindraf should get its facts right before making baseless claims about the government.

He said the claim that the Indian community was facing ethnic cleansing was a distortion of actual incidents. "They (Hindraf) do not understand ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing happens in Palestine, Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia, where the murder of former Yugoslav Muslims and Palestinian Arabs is carried out systematically." Nazri was referring to one of the points raised in Hindraf's memorandum to the British government, claiming that Malaysian Indians were being subjected to "atrocities". The memorandum has been circulating on the Internet. Nazri said Hindraf was wrong in its perception of the Kampung Medan incident. "The incident, where it was said that 100 people died, was not the systematic cleansing of ethnic Indians. "It was a racial riot which occurred between Malays and Indians. Malays died, too," said Nazri after launching the state-level Loy Krathong Thai water festival in Pengkalan Assam on Saturday night. Nazri said Hindraf had committed an offence towards its own country, Malaysia, and jeapordised harmony among the races. He said the government placed priority on the rights of the two million people in Malaysia's Indian community, instead of the four or five "crooked leaders" who participated in the illegal rally.

== = = == = =December 05, 200718:18 PM

No Ethnic Cleansing, Says Lecturer

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- A senior lecturer at Universiti Malaya's Indian Studies Department has dismissed as untrue the accusation by Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) leader P. Uthayakumar that the government practised ethnic cleansing of Indians. G. Sivapalan said it was also not true that a Hindu temple was demolished every three weeks in the country, adding that if that was so there would be no temples in five years. Referring to the demolition of the MariammanTemple in Padang Jawa, Shah Alam, last month, he said the matter should be raised with the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST), and the Malaysian Hindu Sangam. Sivapalan lauded the efforts of the MIC Education Bureau headed by Prof Datuk Dr T. Marimuthu but said more could be done to help deserving Indians. For one, he said, the Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED) could reduce the service charge imposed on borrowers.

= = = =UPDATE:

This latest TNS-Gallup poll results will give the Government plenty of folders to shout about and the “I told you so” stories. A sample size of 1250 from urban areas in the peninsula was quoted. No details of the respondents were given.Most of these surveys are probably done by recruited TNS Malaysia part-timers and we can hazard a guess that these respondents “face-to-face” might be the well fed and contented lunch-time crowd on the urban streets.The survey is over in a couple of minutes with yes/no answers and the results might tend to skew towards the yes. If a broader spectrum is selected, the percentage would not be that high.

The latest TNS-Gallup poll results in Malaysia revealed there is perceived democracy and superficial fair election but most are unable to see the behind the scene moves in transferring voters and all the gerrymanderingto divide a geographic area into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

= == = =

2007/12/06, from NST

DEMOCRACY IN ASIA: Malaysia scores big in Gallup International poll

Survey shows Malaysians have full faith in free, fair elections* 74% of Malaysians feel that elections in the country are free and fair* 69% feel that the people are well-represented by the governmentThat's the highest in the region, where an average 53% of the people believe that elections in their country are neither free nor fair, and nearly 61% do not feel that their government follows the will of the people.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians are the most confident in Asia of their country’s free and fair elections, and outrank most of the region in their faith in democracy, according to an international poll.

A new global survey, Voice of the People, conducted by TNS and Gallup International, found three-quarters of Malaysians answered yes to whether “elections in your country are free and fair", the highest among 10 nations in Asia, and exceeding by far the 47 per cent world average. TNS is a global market insight and information group with offices in more than 70 countries. Gallup International is the renowned polling outfit based in Zurich. The survey, which included a study on democracy in Asia, was done between June and August this year and involved more than 60,000 people in 57 countries excluding China. The results were released yesterday. With a sample size of 1,250 Malaysians, 74 per cent felt that elections in this country were legitimate and 69 per cent believed that government was by the will of the people. The sample was selected from urban areas in the peninsula and respondents were interviewed face-to-face.

“This belief in the transparency of elections is in contrast to the sentiment expressed by more than half of respondents across the region who do not consider their country’s election process to be so impartial,” TNS and Gallup said in a statement. At the other end of the scale, only 16 per cent in Pakistan believed their elections were free and fair. The others were: India (55 per cent), Hong Kong (51 per cent), Indonesia (58 per cent), Japan (50 per cent), Korea (55 per cent), the Philippines (22 per cent) and Singapore (68 per cent). The survey also showed that an average of 53 per cent in the region believed elections in their countries were neither free nor fair and 61 per cent did not feel their government followed the will of the people when it came to making decisions. Around the region nearly eight out of 10 people surveyed (78 per cent) agreed with the idea that democracy might have problems but it is still the best system of government.

In Malaysia, 85 per cent believed democracy was best, more than any other country except Indonesia (89 per cent) and Vietnam (86 per cent). The rest all scored above 75 per cent. Satisfaction in democracy overall was also prevalent in the region. An average of seven in 10 interviewees (73 per cent) declared themselves to be content. About 88 per cent in Malaysia were satisfied with democracy, a higher proportion than the bedrock of Asian democracy, India, with 79 per cent. The others were: Hong Kong (71 per cent), Indonesia (69 per cent), Japan (79 per cent), Korea (75 per cent), Pakistan (66 per cent), the Philippines (63 per cent), Singapore (81 per cent) and Vietnam (89 per cent). Globally, 79 per cent of the people surveyed believed democracy was the best system and 69 per cent were satisfied with democracy